News

As expected, NBCUniversal has invested another $200 million into BuzzFeed. The company invested the same amount last year. This new round of funding puts BuzzFeed at a $1.7 billion valuation.

The investment will allow BuzzFeed to “focus on further developing data science and technology, growing the massive Tasty food media network, and creating cross-platform advertising products,” according to an announcement. BuzzFeed will also expand its news operations.

“The investment allows us to remain a fully independent company but have access to and resources from the strongest and best media company there is,” said BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti.

They’ve held some memorable screenings over the years for “Roving Cinema,” Indy Film Fest’s series that screens old favorites in new, cool places. For example, Newsies, the 1992 musical about a New York City newspaper strike, was shown in the newsroom of the Indianapolis Star.

But perhaps nothing is as sweet as the idea of watching Die Hard atop Indiana’s tallest building. The Dec. 12 screening sold out today, and for 150 lucky patrons, this will be this holiday season a Christmas movie screening that is impossible to beat. From James Hibberd’s listing in Entertainment Weekly of the many Yuletide references to be savored in the 1988 Bruce Willis action classic:

5. Wait, John McClane’s wife’s name is freakin’ Holly. I never got that one before! Surprised their kids aren’t named Mistletoe and Poinsettia.

The screening will be held at the D’Amore event space, located on the 48th floor of the Chase Tower in Indianapolis.

Benét Wilson (pictured) was one of three journalists who took part in a recent Princeton University discussion about diversity in the newsroom. Student newspaper The Daily Princetonian has a good summary of the event. They also took the opportunity to separately interview Wilson.

Wilson, currently a freelance aviation journalist, explains how she came to be known by the nickname “aviation queen” and also drops a couple of reminders of the span of her career. Asked about the importance of social media, Wilson takes a fun step back:

“It’s interesting because I started my career on a typewriter. I literally went into a newsroom, first job out of college, and they were excited because they had just gotten electric typewriters.”

Those were the days; when newsroom folks were excited about electric typewriters rather than referral-spiked traffic reports. Wilson’s career took a fateful turn in 2011, when she was laid off from Aviation Week & Space Technology. Just how long has that particular publication been in existence?

”It’s been around so long that Orville Wright was a subscriber.”

Wilson, who sits on the board of the National Association of Black Journalists, recently met with her mentored group, who asked for advice about breaking into journalism. When The Daily Princetonian posed the same question, she refers back to what she told them.

In the March 2011 issue of Maxim magazine, a portion of “Top 16 Sports Bars in America” about Sam’s Sports Grill, formerly located in Tennessee near the campus of Vanderbilt University, read as follows:

Resident bartender knowledge: How to pick up local chicks. ‘Get ’em hammered! Everyone’s really friendly because it’s a college town. Vanderbilt is right next to us, so cheer for their team.’

The Hillsboro Village location closed following a fire in 2015. However, at the affiliated Sam’s Place in Belle Meade, a framed display in the restrooms highlights that text as well as the cover of the March 2011 issue and voted honor. Jim Myers, food columnist for The Tennessean, wrote to management about the display after paying a recent visit to the bar. Somewhat to his surprise, he received the following response:

I heard back from Bob Tappan, the director of operations for Sperry’s restaurants and the six Sam’s locations. His response was as decisive as it was thoughtful.

“I’m the Director of Operations for Sam’s and a father of two teenage daughters, one of which is away in college. I had never given much thought to the blurb on the plaques; for us the plaque was more about our little spot being nationally recognized. After reading your email, I went straight to the restrooms to read the blurb again. I now believe you have a valid point and I’m having a trophy company fabricate small black metal pieces to go over the Blurb. I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention,” he responded through email.

The New York Times has named Diane Brayton general counsel. Brayton has been with the Times since 2014, most recently serving as deputy general counsel.

Brayton is succeeding Kenneth Richieri, who will retire December 31. Richieri had served as the Times’ general counsel since 2006.

“Ken has been a trusted advisor who helped guide The Times as it underwent a remarkable evolution from a national print newspaper to a truly international digital media outlet during his three decades of service,” said Times president and CEO Mark Thompson, in an announcement. “His broad legal experience, commercial instincts and expertise in digital publishing and intellectual property rights were invaluable to that transformation.”

“Diane’s keen understanding of the legal environment in which The New York Times operates and her broad range of legal and corporate governance expertise make her ideally suited to lead our legal department,” added Thompson.

According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, voters thought the media was absolutely terrible this election season. Historically terrible, in fact.

Overall, 38 percent of voters gave the press a “F” when asked to grade the media’s conduct during the 2016 presidential election. That’s the highest percentage of failing grades in the history of Pew’s election season study.

Oddly, a vast majority of Republicans—60 percent—gave the media a failing grade. And they won!

“Voters who back Republican candidates have long been highly critical of the press, but this marks the first time a majority of any presidential candidate’s supporters has ‘failed’ the press for its campaign conduct,” explained Pew.

Democrats were much nicer to the press. Just 22 percent gave them a F, while 38 percent considered the media’s conduct an A or B.

Parker was most recently a politics reporter covering Donald Trump for the New York Times. She had been with the Times for 11 years.

“Ashley is a seasoned political reporter whose work we have long admired,” wrote WaPo national editor Scott Wilson and senior politics editor Steven Ginsberg, in a memo. “Her stories are filled with sharp observations and behind-the-scenes reporting, and they are always delivered in her engaging, masterful writing style. Ashley also has a deep understanding of the ways of Washington that will be critical to covering the Trump administration.”

Times media columnist Jim Rutenbergwrote that “Today’s fake news is limited only by the imaginations of its inventors and the number of shares it can garner on Facebook or Twitter.”

“With a mainstream news media that works hard to separate fact from fiction under economic and political threat, Facebook — which has contributed to that economic threat by gobbling up so much of the online advertising market — is going to have a special responsibility to do its part,” continued Rutenberg.

“Whatever the title, Facebook needs someone who can distinguish a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from child pornography and who can tell a baseless lie from a thoroughly vetted investigative story,” explained Sullivan.

The fake news explosion on Facebook is a bad situation even if you can convince yourself it didn’t have a major impact on the presidential election (it did). Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is only making things worse by continuing to act like “more than 99 percent” of Facebook content is authentic.

Late Saturday night, Zuckerberg once again addressed fake news in a Facebook post. “We’ve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously. We’ve made significant progress, but there is more work to be done.” That is true.

Hearst Magazines has added Carine Roitfeld’s CR Fashion Book to its list of publications.

Hearst will now act as publisher and sales lead for CRFashionbook.com. The site will also be hosted MediaOS, Hearst’s universal publishing platform.

PubWorx, a joint venture with Condé Nast, will manage printing, production and distributon of the biannual CR Fashion Book magazine.

The deal also marks the creation of a new company, CR Fashion Book Ltd., which will publish and produce all editorial content for the magazine and site.

Ad sales for CR Fashion Book in print will be overseen by publisher Jorge Garcia, who has held that role since the magazine launched in 2012. Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld has been named president of CR Fashion Book Ltd.

I will be on a rare family vacation all of this week so there will be no posts until next Monday, November 28. Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates it or at least gets the day off. (I tried to find a more annoying font...
Armin
http://www.underconsideration.com

In today’s Palm Beach Post, reporters Pat Beall, Lawrence Mower and Christine Stapleton make a number of powerful comparisons about how the matter of rampant heroin addiction is being addressed more seriously elsewhere than it is in their own backyard. Among the article‘s targets are Senator Marco Rubio, who missed a related Senate bill vote, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and Florida Governor Rick Scott:

In Massachusetts in 2014, Gov. Deval Patrick declared a public health emergency after the number of overdose deaths from all narcotics in his state had grown by 15 percent from the year before.

In Florida, deaths from heroin alone grew by 111 percent during the same period; in Palm Beach County, it was 155 percent. But other than hurricanes, Gov. Rick Scott’s most recent state of emergency was to combat Zika, which has killed no one in Florida.

In addition to the front-page story, there are items about the sad fate of two half-brothers, a compilation of the life stories of each and every one of the people who died locally in 2015 of heroin-related overdoses, and more. Amanda Michniak, a recovering heroin addict whose sister Josie died from an overdose the day after Christmas last year, tells the paper “the system is broken.”

In a recent memo explaining the reasons for layoffs at Guardian US, a finger was pointed at Facebook and Google. Now, in the wake of those staff reductions, the paper is looking for fill a Homeless Editor position in San Francisco, a city where the Silicon Valley boom threatens all but those lucky enough to have rent control.

On the brighter side, homelessness is a (sadly) rich beat. From the job posting‘s list of Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

– Be a first-point of contact for the homeless project, and be responsible for day-to-day oversight of the project;
– Commission and communicate with freelancers who might contribute to the project, helping to shape and edit their coverage;
– Find and craft compelling, human-centric stories that explore the impact of homelessness on individuals and society;
– Explore emerging platforms and tools that enable digital storytelling and distribution of stories;
– Contribute ideas to news planning, building your own areas of interest within the Guardian’s editorial strategy;
– Develop a working app.

When Barbra Streisand appeared on Australia’s version of 60 Minutes, she mused that she might have to move Down Under, or to Canada, if Donald Trump was elected president. In the wake of that eventuality becoming a reality, a new form of headline has begun to take shape. One we will christen Nuts!

Here’s how The New York Times frames Streisand’s participation in a series of conversations set for the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival:

Here’s the way website Newsmax covered Streisand’s appearance on the December cover of W magazine:

Finally, here’s the closest thing to what a headline might look like if Streisand and husband James Brolin decide to ditch the U.S. This L.A. Times “Hot Property” item involves property where a Streisand home previously stood: